


If The Waters Can Redeem Me

by Tournesol



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Crossroads, Episode 5, Established Relationship, M/M, Winters in the bath, always thirsting for more Winters in the bath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 22:16:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8226479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tournesol/pseuds/Tournesol
Summary: Set during episode 5 - Crossroads. Winters and Nixon are at odds after Winters' promotion to XO. Winters has more to lose than Easy. And maybe Nixon has more to quit than just vat-69.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greetingsprogramms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greetingsprogramms/gifts), [jspringsteen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jspringsteen/gifts).



> Based on the fictional characters from the show, no disrespect meant to the real guys.

Winters sits in front of that damned typewriter, struggling to find the right words.  
He should have handed that report to HQ days ago but for some reason getting the right words are a struggle. He tries not to read too much into this momentary block, tries not to see it as incompetence regarding his new XO position. Surely if Sink promoted him, he must have what it takes for the job. But then again, Sobel had been promoted too. 

He sighs. He’s a man of action more than words. He’s proven himself in the field and truly hopes he’ll be able to do so behind a desk as well. He gets a sentence down and then leans back in frustration. If he’s being honest, there’s more to this writing block than new promotion jitters. This is his last report as commander of Easy. He stares at the names on the page, the names of his men. He knows he’s just delaying the inevitable, but an irrational part in him wants to hold on to Easy just a little while longer, before his handing the report makes it final. 

And then there’s the Nixon question. Report writing hasn’t been the only area in his life where Winters has been struggling with words. They’ve been at odds ever since the promotion, stilted. Winters has always gone Nixon’s way, but for once, he finds himself at a crossroads where their paths diverge. They’ve always clicked where it mattered despite their opposite personalities, but for the first time Winters’ promotion has upset their work balance. Winters has crossed an invisible line and he’s not sure Nixon can follow.

His typewriter stares at him as he thinks back on their last conversation. Yes, the missing words aren’t only those he can’t conjure up on the page for the report. 

+++

“I don’t know why I’m still doing this,” Nixon had said to him, going to his stash of vat-69 in Winters’ foot locker. 

“What, drinking?” Winters had said with more bite than usual, not looking up from his typewriter.

“No, hiding it in your footlocker. I'm a captain, for chrissake,” Nixon had said, a brutal honesty in his eyes despite the flippancy of his tone. No use pretending not to know the real nature of the conversation they were actually having, multilayered and understandable by them alone. For all the convoluted way of saying it, they’d both known that what Nixon truly meant was that if not for his stash in Winters’ foot locker, he’d have no excuse anymore to show up the way he does. That he’d been doing so for the benefit of seeing each other, to get his refill of Winters more than of vat-69. 

“Well, why don't you...? Why don't you just give it up?” Winters’d said, harsher than he had meant to. Lashing out on Nix about his own feeling of helplessness at having left the boys. 

“- Drinking?”

“- No. Hiding it in my footlocker. You're a captain, for Pete's sake.” They’d both heard it for the dismissal it was. Time to go your own way. 

“Maybe this is the place to stop drinking,” Nixon had said in a strange tone. Objectively speaking, this was true. With Winters no longer in charge of Easy, it would only be a matter of time they would be parted too, whether by command, or worse. Both of them being officers, maybe it was time to leave out personal concerns aside for the good of the troops.  
But then why did it feel so wrong to consider their parting?

In the end, Nixon had said about Winters’ report to “say ‘we’ a lot.” Maybe they were still a “we” then. Maybe Winters was a harder habit to kick than vat-69. 

+++

They’re on edge after that. If privacy was fleeting before, it’s now close to an impossibility with Dick having an orderly shadowing him. Nix sends him off out of sheer bitterness on a quest for coffee. More bitterness is exactly what he needs.

Nixon scoffs at Winters’ worried queries about Easy.

“There it is. Wishes he were back in charge of Easy.” 

“Nix? Are we sure on the intelligence of this?” Winters asks tentatively. 

Never once in the past had Winters doubted Nix’s competence. But then again in the past Winters didn’t have to ask because Nixon offered the information. Is Winters unintentionally harsher toward Nixon because he gets to be with Easy and Winters doesn’t? Is Nixon closing off in retaliation, offended that Winters would not trust him with the fate of Easy, or that Winters would think that Nixon wouldn’t warn him if anything happened?

There was a time when Nixon trusted Dick with sensitive intel and now it feels like Dick has to ask him for the simple stuff. It seems forever ago the time in the train when Nix told them they were due to Europe.

He answers to Nix’s retreating figure and it’s a good image of their interactions lately, of their struggle to communicate.

 

+++

Nix sends him off to Paris on leave and it feels like a dismissal. Like Nixon is putting some distance, actual distance between them to ease their parting. It should come as a good news but it’s delivered with such flippancy that Winters can’t feel good about this. The sting is made all the more sharper because Nixon says he’s heading back to Aldbourne to “look up a certain young lady.” It used to be code for when they secretly met, back when they were together in England. Winters can’t even argue because Welsh is in the room with them and Winters thinks that it’s no coincidence, that Nixon timed it on purpose to avoid the conversation.

+++ 

In Paris Winters walks through a crowd of smiling people but he’s never felt so isolated and their good mood as well as the gorgeous Parisian scenery can’t permeate him. He’s used to be apart from the men by necessity, but not from Nixon. Currahee. Stand Alone. He’s never felt their motto as much as now and it’s a dull ache in his chest that leaves him hollow. Unsmiling, he goes back to his room. 

The room he’s in is outrageous in its decadence, the room that could house a whole company, the marbled floor and walls. And most of all: the bathtub. Private hot showers are a rare enough luxury for a soldier. But a bathtub. He can’t remember the last time he took a proper bath. Winters rarely allows himself indulgences, but when in Paris... 

He draws a bath, grateful for the soothing sound, finding the silence makes him uneasy. Privacy and quiet are a rare luxury when you’re a soldier and Winters knows he should enjoy this but finds that he can’t.

There’s a bottle left on a table that keeps getting his attention and he can’t get it out of his head because it reminds him of the person he’s desperately trying not to miss. The amber liquid catches the light in a glint like the muzzle flash of a lone sniper, sending a particular ache in his chest, as if marked as a target. Only the sniper is currently on leave in Aldbourne. It doesn’t matter. The range of that particular ache defies any weaponry. He won’t be at ease until he does something about it.

Winters never indulges, but this once he pours himself a drink. He smells before putting the glass to his lips and the scent triggers a series of shrapnel memories behind his eyelids, so vivid he scrunches his eyes shut against the onslaught, all of his senses trying to hold on to the memories disappearing like smoke, as if the person tied to them would vanish as well.

He takes a sip and it tastes nothing like the dreadful thing the Normans make called Calvados and that he tasted with the boys in the back of that truck after their first jump. The liquid is sharp and he feels it burning down his throat. He takes a breath that revives the taste in his mouth, and feels the heat of the liquid radiating through his chest as it goes down. It’s a poor substitute for the cold that has been lodged in his chest and attached to Nixon.

Thinking about him is bittersweet, a peculiar brand of relief/pain that he knows is just Nixon’s. The drink is whiskey, he knows as much. He couldn’t tell if it were good or bad whiskey, and Nixon would probably berate him for associating him with this thing that has probably nothing on vat-69.

Winters doesn’t drink to get drunk, he drinks to conjure up the likeness of a person longed for, a person long missed, feeling every bit of the distance between, real and metaphorical. It doesn’t matter which because they hurt just as bad.

He steps in the bathtub and sighs in bliss as he tries to retain the liquid warmth within, letting hot water envelop him for the first time in years. He gets his head under the water line and stays there, relaxes, and relishes the sensation of being weightless.  
For a few blissful seconds he’s stripped of uniform, rank, responsibilities. He reaches a peculiar state of peace and tries to hold onto it, to quieten the doubts he’s been feeling these past few weeks. 

When he gets his head out of the water the air feels cold on his face and he’s centered again, feels his body as his own in a way he hasn’t in a long time. In that instant he’s reminded that he is a man before being a soldier. And that’s the heart of the matter isn’t it? In order to be a good officer he needs to be a good man. He’s been feeling wrong-footed about his relationship with Nixon ever since he got promoted because he’s been trying to make sense of it from an officer’s standpoint. The way he feels about Nixon hasn’t changed. It doesn’t make sense because it doesn’t have to. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” they say, and that’s precisely what Winters has been doing all this time. For all their differences they’ve always worked because they’re equals, man to man. Rank doesn’t matter. The simplicity of that realization makes him smile. 

He takes stock of his feelings for Nixon, the way he misses him. Those feelings are out of his control, but he can control the way he acts on them. He’s not one to be a coward, nor a selfish man. He’s gonna go home and make things right with Nixon. Provided Nixon wants this too. It’s with a pang that Winters realizes that by “home,” he means wherever Nixon is, but if anything, this only heightens his resolve.

+++

When Winters gets back, he goes straight to his footlocker. He stands before it closed, dread making his fingertips tingle. He's afraid of what he’ll find, or not find, inside. He opens it and finds the bottles of vat-69 are still there, a fixture. He can’t picture his footlocker without them just like he can’t picture his life without Nixon. The breath he takes is restorative. He closes his eyes and feels a warm sense of calm and easyness wash over him for the first time in a while. If Nixon had meant to part ways, he’d have taken his stash back. 

The days of indecision and miscommunication are over. With a newfound resolve, Winters sets to take action. He sends for Nix with some pretext, there’s always paperwork to deal with now anyway so the excuse is valid. He doesn’t even have to send his orderly on an errand, because the man is dutiful and knows when Winters wants him scarce.

Nixon steps in but stops in the doorway. He looks rough, tentative, bracing for a bad news. Heartbreak is visible on his features and his eyes are downcast as if he can’t bear to look at Winters, fearful of what he could read in those eyes. The ache Winters’ been feeling in the past few days is nothing compared to seeing the hurt in Nixon’s demeanor. 

Winters is frozen in place by a wave of sharp Nixonian pain/relief, and he aches to reach him, the mere meters between them like a physical blow. When Nixon finally looks up and their eyes lock, Winters’ heart starts beating painfully against his ribcage. He’s still sitting at his stupid desk and his legs won’t work, his mouth doesn’t work as well, the words he had ready evaporated in the wake of the force of the emotions that seized him when he saw Nixon. Winters’ lips part but no sound come out. He leaves the pleading to his eyes and they must do the job alright because suddenly Nixon is crossing the room and bridging the distance between them. 

Winters just has the presence of mind to turn in his chair to face Nixon, or rather his body registers Nixon and angles itself to him like a magnet because Winters can’t remember making the conscious decision to do so but it doesn’t matter because suddenly Nixon is there and he’s his, enveloping him, a hand on his neck and his arm tightening around his shoulders to pull him close to his chest. 

Winters takes a shuddery breath, buries his nose in the cotton of Nixon’s jacket to breathe him in, the familiar scent of him that takes him home and sends a spike of relief through him. Winters’ hands clench in the back of Nixon’s jacket and he never wants to let go and it’s alright because Nixon is holding onto him just as well, gripping his shoulder with one hand while the other strokes the nape of Winters’ neck with soothing fingertips, carding fingers through the short red hair in a touch unbearably gentle. 

Nixon is there, warm against him, and at last Winters is not eaten away by longing for that impossible man but hungers for more. He grabs Nixon by the lapel of his jacket and brings him down for a kiss, putting all the frustration and heartbreak and longing into it, making up for the ache and distance of the past weeks and Nixon gives as good as he gets, responds in kind to Winters’ silent pleas via lip. They both read it as the apology that it is, however wordless. There'll be time for words later because they're going to make some for it.

The kiss leaves them breathless and afterwards all they can do is rest their foreheads together. Winters gets his hand on Nixon’s cheek to hold him there, and whispers against his lips “stay.”

He does.

**Author's Note:**

> Dialogue is straight from the episode except in the end.  
> Title from the song I'm Ready by Tracy Chapman.
> 
> Damn the acting in the scene when they discuss Nixon quitting drinking. The dialogue has SO MANY LAYERS. They're having a whole other discussion while this happens and the acting that goes with it is just !!!!!!!!!!!!!! And then we have Winters in the bath in Paris, and you can see an open bottle on a table with a glass (not yet empty!) next to it when Winters doesn't drink which begs the question why did he drink? Come yell at me about this on [tumblr](http://hugatreeortwo.tumblr.com)


End file.
